My Girls!

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend with all my girls!



Shea

Skyler

Marcy, Julie

Shea & Skyler

Marcy, Julie

Shea & Skyler

I love those girls. Papa had fun too!

I've been away from WiFi for a while so it will take me a while to catch up, but catch up I will do ASAP.

Skyler's Baseball

Fun evening at Skyler's (coach pitch) baseball game. She did really good - 2 runs! Of course at this age they don't keep score, but it's fun for the families.



Check out the shirts the family can buy.

You can get one that says Skyler's Papa or Uncle too.

She's getting ready for the game.

Here's one of her 3 hits. See the ball?

 She just stole 3rd on this second run.

It's blurry, but you can see the excitement.

Running home for the second time. 

She's so excited that she jumps on home base!

Playing short stop. She played 1st, 2nd, shortstop and outfield.

Packing up ready to leave. One more game left!

We all had fun watching her. Good job Skyler!

Quilts & Stuff

Ok, so for the last couple of days we've been just making a bee line across (actually down) thru Georgia so that we can get to Julie's house and get hugs from the granddaughters. And the girls too. (Marcy's coming out.)

We haven't been doing any sight-seeing or hiking, just a little shopping for pecans and peaches. So I thought I'd show you a few of the quilts I finished. Yes, I brought quilts that needed the binding sewn down. Something I can do as we drive.

This first one was done on a friendship retreat at the lake.

Done! (except the label)

This is one of the twins.

The other one didn't get the binding sewn on before we left so it's still at home.

Done! (again no label yet)

I love this posy quilt. Mitzie did a great job quilting it and the pink one above.

The binding is not quite finished, but tomorrow it will be.

Almost done.

I have four more to sew down. Yeah, I brought 7 quilts to sew the binding down on. Hey, this is gonna be a long trip. Seven quilts done - wow! I can't wait. I'll post the pictures as I do them.



I bought this book at the Smoky Mountains. It's about quilters in east Tennessee.

It's not a new publication, but what I've read so far is interesting.

Made it to Florida today and will be at Julie's tomorrow. Can't wait for some family time. Plus, Marcy is flying in Thursday so it will be fun times with all my girls. And they reminded me we will all be together for mother's day. Yeah!

Here in Florida they have this little bug - the love bug. There are thousands!

And that's just on the front of the 5th-wheel.

See more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovebug

Another clue that we're in Florida. It's gator country.

Chickens at the RV park?

They followed us around and when we didn't feed them they crowed.

(Lunch for the gators?)

So tomorrow starts family time and we can't wait. We miss Julie and the little girls - yes, you too Keith. See ya tomorrow.



It's a Woodchuck!

This morning we were looking for the little critter again. We had lots of suggestions at to what it is:
- groundhog
- capybara
- marmot
- woodchuck

We asked at the office and the guy told us it's a woodchuck! And the winner is Reagan - actually her husband guessed woodchuck. 

More pictures of him from this morning - there were two of them.

"Hey, where ya goin'?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Oh look, a bunny!"

Then this cardinal came along.

Then he caught me taking his picture.

Fun morning!



What is it?

Our guess is beaver!

This guy entertained us while we waited for pizza delivery. By the time he headed off the grass we decided it must be a beaver. 



Great Smoky Mountains & Quilts

Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg were both disappointing. Too touristy and too crowded. I know it's only May, but we're here on the weekend and so is everyone else. I guess we're gonna have to start paying attention to what day it is. We did shop a bit, which is one of the main things to do here, and I found red cowgirl boots! But as in Branson we decided not to see a show.

The good thing is that you don't have to go far out of town to see the beauty of the area.

This morning we woke to rain tapping on the roof. Our original plan was to leave early, but we adjusted it a bit and left a few hours later. It was still sprinkling as we headed out.   

A little rain on the windsheild.

We were hiking while it's still very damp out.

It was not a good hair day.

An old house in the Cades Cove on the west side of the park.

The clouds lifted and the sun even came out for a while.

A church with a cemetery beside it.

It's so beautiful here.

The mountains are smoky.

Beautiful butterfly.

I think this is his brother or maybe cousin.

Inside this mill we watched a guy grind corn the old way.

They sell the corn mill here and of course I had to buy some.

There were two deer in the tall grass.

We watched them lay down for an afternoon rest.

At the visitor center the lady told us there were bear sightings in this area; that they were in the trees. Ray asked her how we could pet them if they were in the trees. She gave him a look before she realized he was kidding.

 

We left the park and took another way back to the RV. Going thru some of the local areas we stopped at the craft and antique shops.

At one of the shops there were old quilts. I didn't buy any, but there were several that caught my eye.



I could look at this one for hours.

There's lots of odd things going on here.

I love this one. It said it was made about 100 years ago.

Someday I'm gonna make a scrappy Shoo-fly quilt.

Talk about using up all those little scraps.

(Hey Bonnie, check this one out.)

I can see this one made from the shirt plaids.

The one behind it with the red ties is kinda cute too.

Back at the rv park the ducks were out looking for dinner.

Ray got some duck food and fed them from our door.

Check out the river across the road.

Loved the Smoky Mountains Park, but we're leaving here tomorrow. It's another place on our list to come back to and we found a great little community to stay in next time.

Tomorrow Lookout Mountain near Chatanooga and then on to Orlando. We're gonna be there in time to see Skyler's last baseball games.

Nashville

We've had a great time here in Nashville. We got here Tuesday afternoon and it was hot and muggy so we didn't really do much except make a salad for dinner.

Wednesday we headed downtown Nashville (I didn't take my camera with) and went to the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. They had something they call Wednesday Cookin' Out Country which was a buffet lunch and music. The singer we saw was Jim Lauderdale, he won an award in 2002 for songwriting and he's a very good singer.
The Hall of FameMuseum was really good and there is a special exibit of California Country in Bakersfield with lots of stuff about Hank and Merle. It was interesting to see how they played into country music in the west.

After the museum we walked down to Broadway (aka NashVegas) to check out the local flavor. We heard the places there all had live music. We checked them all out and even checked out the boot places (still looking for those red cowgirl boots) and went back to the place that sounded the best from the sidewalk - Honky Tonk Central.  We stayed for a couple hours snacking and listening to great music.

Today we had to do a bit of laundry in the morning then we decided to check out Antique Archaeology - you know the place owned by those guys on American Picker. The place was small and very expensive. My cousin in Iowa said the same thing about their shop there. However, there was a place next door with great coffee and snacks.

We checked out a neighborhood that had really nice houses. They were huge and beautiful, but we're not looking to move.

Tonight we went to The Bluebird Cafe.

Several famous people have gotten their start here, one is Taylor Swift. We heard 8 singer/songwriters, a couple may be famous one day. You can see a few of them sitting in the middle of the room. Yes, it really is this small. They said it seats 100, but without a reservation we were sitting at a barstool on the side of the room. I think we had the best view in the place and great service from Martha; if you go there tell her we said "Hi". 

We're leaving Nashville tomorrow, but we've had a great time and really do want to come back again. Maybe fly in for a few days.

Our next stop is near the Great Smoky Mountains. We need to do a bit of hiking to wear off some of the extra pounds we've found along the way.